The CS Monitor brings us an editorial written by Gerard DeGroot, professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

New space drive - the right thing to do

Civilization gets more bang for the buck in morale, technology, economy.

By Gerard DeGroot

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND -- You can learn a lot from studying billboards. Drive into the town of Cocoa, on Florida's Space Coast, and the first thing you see is a huge sign offering bankruptcy settlements for just $88. Next come two from the real estate sector: "Beat Repossession" and "We Buy Ugly Houses." Advertisements for pawn shops, bail bondsmen, and flea markets confirm an area in crisis.

Then comes a billboard honoring the crew of the shuttle Columbia, which broke up on reentry last February. That sign provides dramatic confirmation of the region's problems. When a spaceship fails, it does so because of mistakes on the ground. The Columbia disaster is a huge emotional burden for the people of Cocoa - but also an economic one.

The future of the space program has been in serious doubt. But now comes news that President Bush will announce a major new space initiative this week that, if approved, will put Americans back on the moon by 2013. Such a mission might in turn be the springboard for a trip to Mars. Under the plans, NASA's budget will increase significantly. Suddenly, they'll be dancing in the streets of Cocoa.much more at link.

In the op-ed piece, professor DeGroot acknowledges that manned space flight was largely a product of "cold-war animosity," and this is pretty clear. He goes on to denigrate the current generation of "geeks" saying, "Computer geeks think not of going to the moon, but rather of spreading spam, hacking, and playing computer games." This seems an ivory tower intellectual position. Sure, some of the best and brightest use their intellectual gifts maliciously, while others squander them playing "computer games," but this is true of every generation.

It is truer to state that the majority of those gifted in math and science have been engaged in the rise of the internet, the greatest enabler of communications that the western world has yet known. Progress in this area continues unabated. How very odd that a person writing a piece for mass distribution via the web, should not acknowledge its importance?

As far as "more bang for the buck in morale, technology,[and] economy" is concerned, I would ask as compared to what? Obviously the defense industry is more than amply compensated here in the U.S. and offers a lousy reurn - largely a stranded cost to the taxpayers. What other programs are more important to our long term goals and provide a higher return, whilst giving rise to a new generation of explorers?

The answer is the environment. Investment in our own planet is what is need now. After having tackled one once thought impossible task through the use of novel, technologies, the environment must now be our number one priority.

It would be irresponsible to go and pollute other worlds when we still have not got our own ecological house in order. It is this mission, that of solving our myriad environmetal problems that represents the greatest benfefit to cost ratio of any challenges facing us at the dawn of the 21st century. Space exploration can wait. Our global environment can not.

As for what is important, there is nothing as important as securing a place for life to inhabit. We've been to the Moon, Mars and Venus - none of our cosmological neighbors is fit for human habitation. If we fail to act soon, the Earth's climatic change will render civilization in the near future unrecognizable to us.

I do agree that space exploration offers excitement that solving environmental challenges is unlikely to match. But the solving of our environmental challenges offers benefits that space exploration can never come a light year from equaling. That is the saving of us.